You Said, She Said
by APAccidentalAccount
Summary: Chapter 5, Things You Said at the Kitchen Table: Two hundred. You'd do it again.
1. Things You Said Through Your Teeth

Your hands shake as you ease the driver's side door shut, eyes on Max, asleep in the other seat. She doesn't stir, curled up under your jacket. You watch her for a moment longer, taking in the way her bangs flutter with each exhale.

Then you turn away, chest tight, and dig a crushed carton of cigarettes out of your pocket. A wheezy 'shit' drops from your lips when the pack slips from your fingers and pops open on the ground, spilling cigarettes into the mud.

"Shit, fuck, shit," you hiss, kneeling and hurriedly trying to salvage them, guilt and fear and grief and a million other things you can't name tightening around your throat like a noose.

You have most of them picked up when you hit 'fuckit' and jam the end of a filter between your lips. You taste dirt and fumble with your shitty Bic, thumb slipping off the striker several times before you finally get it right. The small flame jumps in your unsteady hands, licking your fingers as much as the end of your cigarette, but it doesn't matter when the paper catches and you drag in smoke.

It washes over your tongue and burns your throat, burns away strands of rope wound around it. The smoke settles in your lungs like home, like black smoke billowing from fires that consume the shattered remains of all you've ever known, of all you've ever had.

Yet you live. You breathe. You feel wetness seeping into the knees of your jeans and the nip of the October breeze across your clammy shoulders.

You cough on the exhale, and the rope snaps back into place around your neck as you watch blue smoke catch fire in the amber glow of dying light.

You tried, you want to scream. You tried.

But since when has trying ever been good enough?

You flick your cigarette back into the mud and stand, shoving your hands in your pockets to hide their shaking. Your knuckles brush the torn, damp edge of a Polaroid.

Frustration boils beneath your skin, and you say, through grit teeth, to the black smoke and the rubble and the bodies in the streets so many miles behind you: "I'm not worth this much."

* * *

 **AN: I did a rewrite of this chapter because, well, the other version didn't really fit with the rest of the story. It didn't seem like a good enough introduction. This one still doesn't, but at least it isn't poetic prose while the rest of the chapters are straight up prose. Anywho, thanks for sticking around, sorry for the false alert, followers, and hopefully I'll have the new thing I'm working on up sometime in the next three weeks. Hit me up on tumblr at pa-writes if you want to talk about literally anything.**


	2. Things She Said at One AM

You sit on the edge of the motel bed and stare at your hand in the dark.

It's a perfectly normal human hand, with perfectly normal human tendons that flex under perfectly normal human skin when you move your perfectly normal human fingers.

Except it's _far_ from normal. It's extraordinary and powerful and you're half tempted to take the knife in the glove box of Chloe's truck and cut it off. You might have tried already, if you thought it would do any good.

But it isn't just your hand. It's all of you. That much is evident from the shadow of a migraine in your temples and the dried blood beneath your nails. The Rewind lives inside your head and tries to tear you apart every time you use it.

You take a shaky breath and run your hands carefully through your hair, tracing the roundness of your skull. You don't know what you're looking for, and you feel a bit silly for looking at all, especially when you discover no mysterious new lump or crack or scar. You're just you. You've always been just you.

You just happen to have the power to destroy entire towns by fucking around with time.

Pins and needles prickle your fingers and you hunch forward, forcing yourself to take even breaths. You're not going to have a panic attack. You're _not._ What's done is done and you can't change it. Not this time.

The bedsprings screech. A thin arm loops around your hips and a pointed chin digs into your shoulder. You try to relax. By the way she squeezes you reassuringly, you don't think you had much success.

"Did you know," she starts sleepily, her warm breath ghosting over the shell of your ear. "That there's this law in Connecticut that says a pickle is only a pickle if it bounces?"

You startle yourself with a laugh: a short, high bark, like a pistol going off. Chloe buries her face in your shoulderblade and squeezes your hips again. The pins and needles spread to your wrists, and you're not entirely in control of your breathing anymore.

"Max," she whispers into your shirt. She hesitates, and you feel her jaw move like she's trying to think of the right words. "Max, I'm here. I'm right here, with you. You're not alone, okay?"

You work to get enough air into your lungs, feeling your knuckles creak with how hard you're hanging onto the edge of the bed. "O-okay."

"Say you're not alone, Max."

It comes out with your exhale, running together into one word: "I'mnotalone."

"Again," she says softly, snaking her free arm around you and capturing your hand—your extraordinary, terrible hand—in hers.

"I'm not alone."


	3. Things She Said in the Grass

The truck lurches to a halt, jarring you just enough to knock your head against your window. You hiss and touch the offended area more out of reflex than actual pain, and that's when you notice that Chloe's hands are horribly limp and still on the steering wheel beside you.

You almost give yourself whiplash turning to look at her, your gut twisting sickly. It can't have found a way to take her from you. It can't, not after Arcadia. Whatever debt you incurred by saving her life _has_ to be paid off by now.

She's turned towards her window, and though it is incredibly dark in the truck's cab, you can see her back rise and fall with each breath.

Relief hits you square in the chest, forcing out a wheezy exhale of her name. She doesn't speak, doesn't move. She probably didn't hear you. You're left with a sort of fuzziness coiled behind your sternum when the relief passes. She's alive. She's alive and here, with you.

And, you note with puzzlement after leaning forward to see whatever it is she's looking at, distracted by a field.

Odd.

It's a pretty field, that's undeniable. Silver light from the still-full moon spills over the tall grass and thistle, painting everything soft and bluish. A week ago, a century ago, you might have taken a picture. But that doesn't explain Chloe's enrapturement.

"Chloe," you start, brushing your fingers against the back of her her cold hand. "Why—"

She jerks away suddenly, throwing open her door and tumbling out. She almost slams it shut again, and you're frozen with words caught in your throat and your hand grasping empty air.

Fuzzy feeling gone.

You shrink back into your seat, hands balled into fists in your lap, with the distinct notion that this is your fault.

Her door opens again, and Chloe looks decidedly _not_ upset, even a little eager, when she asks if you're coming or not.

You don't remember getting out, but suddenly you're at her side and she's holding your hand, cold fingers twined with yours as she tugs you out to the field.

"Chloe, what're we doing?" you ask, a bubble of laughter in your throat and grass rustling at your sides.

She looks over her shoulder at you, her grin bright and fierce and _infectious._ You grin back without meaning to. Then Chloe's running, pulling you along with her, how it's always been.

You don't mind; each stride sends a pleasant shock rippling through your bones, and the cool fall air slides into your burning lungs like a balm. It's freeing. It makes you feel new again, even with sweat gathering on your shoulders beneath your hoodie and grass trying to tangle your legs.

You could run forever.

Naturally, Chloe chooses that moment to trip.

Your shoulder jerks painfully, then you're on the ground, sliding, your shirt rucking up so little rocks and dead plant matter can score your back. It stings like hell and you've definitely got grass burn on your thigh, but you can't help your wheezing giggles because _you're still holding her hand._ Chloe starts laughing, too, loud and genuine, and you decide that's your favorite noise in the whole world.

She's still laughing some when she rolls toward you, skin ivory in the moonlight, the dark lines of her tattoo a sharp contrast. Her hair, falling across a blush high in her cheeks and the amused curve of her lips, captures light between the strands and _glows._

You feel your grin soften as you take her in. She's beautiful. She's always beautiful, but especially like this, carefree and a bit dirty, close enough you can feel the warmth rolling off her and looking at you like you're everything. You know that even if you had your camera with you, you wouldn't take a picture of this. These moments are yours. Just yours.

Chloe reaches over with her free hand, cold fingers skimming across the bare skin of your belly. Her blush darkens and her hand stutters, then she pulls down your shirt and draws back.

"My hero," you murmur softly, squeezing her hand. She snorts and squeezes back.

"Please, girl. We both know who the hero here, is," Chloe teases lightly, her face still open and warm. You remember yesterday, the acceptance and fear there as she shoved her life into your hands, then the blank incomprehension when faced with Two Whales' scorched, toppled remains.

Yes, you know who the hero is here.

Her smile fades and she squeezes your hand again. "Hey, what's wrong?"

You bite your lip and taste ash. "...I'm sorry."

Chloe hardens and lets go of your hand. The loss stings. You deserve it.

Then you're crushed to her chest, her arms locked around you. You gasp and wriggle, but she holds you tighter and you go still.

"Don't," she hisses into your ear, her voice wavering. "Fucking don't, Max. I don't want to think about it." She's trembling against you. You press your hand into her side, trying for reassurance. "I _can't_ think about it," Chloe corrects, drawing you closer still. Her voice breaks badly: "I _can't._ Not yet."

You rub her side, guilt gnawing at your insides. "Okay," you mutter into her collarbone. "Okay."

In the truck, she doesn't look at you again.


	4. Things She Said While You Were Driving

**AN: Holy shit guys this is the longest thing I've written in a while. I feel Accomplished. Maybe the next one will be longer. Who knows?!**

 **Thank you all very much for your continued feedback and support. It is my sustenance as a creative being.**

* * *

Something hums under your skin as you wind through Seattle's downtown with Max's direction, neon lighting up the cabin of your shitty truck. Anticipation, maybe. God knows how many times you've imagined coming here, even at your worst, even when you thought you hated Max. No, you feel too sick for it to be anticipation. Maybe—no, you decide, shoving the feeling down. You're not going to analyze yourself while driving, especially not in a new place. You need to be focused on the road.

"Turn here," Max says, just barely audible over the engine. You make the turn, ignoring the emptiness in her voice. You'll deal with it later. You need to be focused on the road.

Which is extremely difficult with your skin crawling and your stomach deciding maybe it wants to trade places with your liver. God, you would kill for some weed.

A horn blares to your left. Your hands jerk automatically, sending your tuck juddering back into your lane. The buzz beneath your skin intensifies and sweat breaks out on the back of your neck.

Oh. You're scared.

You repress this realization not a second after you make it, biting your cheek and concentrating on the car in front of you. Not now, not now. You'll deal with it later.

A red light halts your now-creeping progress, and your eyes stick on the street sign.

"Max," you say softly, tightly, frustration and f—not fear, something else, bitter on your tongue. "Why are we going in circles?"

Max's special brand of guilty silence radiates from the other side of the cabin. The light turns green, so you make the same turn you've made the last seven times and crawl along at a snail's pace.

People pass you, honking, and Max stays quiet.

Your fingers tighten on the steering wheel. So now she's just going to fucking ignore you. Awesome.

"Max," you try again, harsher, because she's not the one who...You bite your cheek again, hard. This isn't the time for that. Later. You'll deal with it later.

She makes a little breathy noise that could be a sob, and you instantly feel like shit.

Another red light, and you look over at her. Max isn't crying, but she's breathing like she's trying not to and wilted, head hung and shoulders slumped, fingers curled loosely into her jacket sleeve.

"Sorry," you bite out, angry for the waste of gas and for being lied to and for having so little control over yourself you've once again upset Max. You grip the steering wheel hard and chew your cheek. "Sorry," you repeat quietly, turning back to the road.

The guilty silence is yours, this time.

Max coughs a little, then: "Yesler Terrace."

You steal a glance at her. "Hm?"

"That's...Just keep on this road. I'll say when you need to turn. It's, um…" She trails off, picking at her sleeve and biting her lip.

"Got it," you say just as the light blinks back to green.

The neon downtown slowly gives way to a pretty regular-looking street, lined with yellowed street lights. The thing you refuse to acknowledge coils tighter and trembles in your hands.

"I'm scared."

You almost don't hear her. You think maybe she's hoping you didn't. Frozen, you try to decide if she wants you to say something or wait for her to elaborate. It's been hard to tell ever since the Vortex party, when she was crying and begging and looking at you with thousand-year-old eyes, too old and too weary for her face. The torn picture burns a hole in your breast pocket, and you wish _you_ could rewind and take away all the things that have aged Max so much.

"I'm scared," Max continues haltingly, "that my parents won't recognize me. That they won't know who I am anymore." Her voice wavers at the end and she's looking down at her hand.

Your gut lurches. You don't know what to say; the difference between this Max and the one that got into your truck on Monday is enormous. It was pure fucking luck you said the right thing in the motel, then you went and fucked that up in the field. Jesus, what are you _supposed_ to say? You could lie, you suppose. Tell her that she hasn't changed all that much, that of course her parents will still see their little girl, and the problem's fixed, right?

She meets your eyes when you look at her and ice slides down your spine. Max has always had doe eyes, wide and bright and curious, wanting to know everything about anything and catching all the tiny things everyone else missed. This thing next to you wearing Max's face has the eyes of a predator, old and flat and sharp, still picking up on the little things people miss, but for entirely different reasons.

It scares the shit out of you. The only thing that keeps you convinced this thing is still Max is the softness around her edges, the way she giggled in the grass and the way she clung to you in the motel and the way she slumped against the window to sleep, leaving little streaks of drool on the glass.

You check the road, then look back at her and find her eyes downcast, fingers tugging at loose threads on her sleeves. Max's mouth twitches into a frown. Her jaw quivers.

"Max," you start, then pause, tapping your nails on the steering wheel. "Max, you know they'll love you no matter what, right?"

She sniffles and tilts her head to listen better.

"Because they will," you continue carefully. "What you've see doesn't make you who you are. You've seen some pretty fucked up shit—" Rachel, Nathan, Jefferson flash through your mind "—but that doesn't mean it's your fault. That doesn't mean you've failed. It's just...Chaos theory. Strange attractors and bad shit. It doesn't matter that you were the butt of this horrible cosmic joke and it's really fucked with your head; your parents aren't going to stop loving you. And—" You bite down on the words before they get out, thinking fast to come up with a replacement. "—and you're Max _fucking_ Caulfield, and you always will be."

She laughs, weak and watery, and she tells you to turn left at the next intersection.

Her hand covers yours on the gearshift, warm and so very Max and for absolutely no reason agitating the fear humming under your skin.

The words you were going to say sit heavy on your tongue. You realize why you're scared.

 _And I won't stop loving you, either._


	5. Things You Said at the Kitchen Table

**HUGE thanks to CT230R, TippyTypewriter, Cordyyceps, and Jiuhyyur for beta'ing!**

* * *

The blue door looms imposingly over you, glass peephole glinting balefully at you.

Hesitantly, you reach out to push the doorbell. You hear it chime through the door, its cheeriness setting your teeth on edge.

A long moment passes, then another, soft predawn light giving way to bright slashes of gold spilling across the door's weathered paint. Chloe shifts uneasily and jabs the doorbell again.

The door flies open almost instantly this time, revealing your father towering in the doorway, anger rolling off him in waves. "What the _hell—"_ He chokes on his words, noticing you, and the anger is gone without a trace. His blue eyes fill up with tears and he holds out his hands, your name tearing from his throat like a prayer.

You fly into his arms with enough force to knock him back a few steps, but he doesn't care and you don't care because he folds you into his chest and he smells like fabric softener and salt and _home._ You're safe, you finally realize, fingers hooking in his flannel. You're _safe._

The dam holding back everything you've bottled up and tucked away for an undetermined 'later' shatters in that instant. Every failure, every death, everything you could've done better or faster or smarter washes over you and falls away, purged, for the moment, through the horrible, barely-human sobs wracking your frame.

Distantly, the ferocity of your breakdown scares you. But your father just holds you tighter, rubbing your back as he cries right along with you.

When you finally pull back, your breath is still hitched and leftover tears spill down your cheeks, but you're the lightest you've been since...since before William died, and you and Chloe were still playing pirates, chasing each other into the surf.

Your dad cups your face and brushes away the tear tracks, then his beard quivers in a smile, his own eyes red and puffy and full of so much love. You can't help but grin back and wonder how you were ever scared of coming home.

He lets his hands fall away. "As much as I'd rather keep you where I can see you, I've got to start on breakfast, and you've got to go hug your mother before she implodes," he says. It's an imitation of his usual dry humor; his voice is a little too thick and he looks a little too vulnerable for his delivery to be any good.

But you laugh anyway, and scrub at your eyes. "Our ban from the kitchen still stands?" you tease. "It was just the _once_ we almost burnt down the house."

Your dad gives you a mock glower on his way to the kitchen. "Once is enough. There's still scorch marks on the ceiling."

You laugh again, reveling in how easy it is as you make your way to the living room, where you assume your mom and Chloe disappeared to.

The TV is on, but muted, when you walk in. There's a panoramic view of Arcadia Bay's ruins and the triages set up between them, clinical white squares among ashen chaos. The banner across the bottom of the screen declares two hundred dead.

Numbness tingles in your fingers. Two hundred. Two hundred, because of you. Because you chose Chloe. Chloe, who's sitting on the couch, defeat evident in every angle of her lean body, back turned on your mother's awkward, smothering brand of comfort. Chloe, who looks up when you enter, features grief-stricken. Chloe, who cries, but lives.

You'd do it again, without hesitation. That sort of scares you, too.

Then you're wrapped up in your mom's arms, breathing in fabric softener and printer ink, letting her card her fingers through your hair and fret over you. Chloe leaves without a word. Guilt settles in the pit of your stomach.

Your mom asks you again and again if you're okay, if anything hurts. For perhaps the first time, you don't mind reassuring her over and over, soaking up the affection.

Over her shoulder, the TV shows Arcadia survivors, dazed and dirty, holding onto each other like the storm was still raging and they'd blow away if they didn't. You see the number again. Two hundred. This time it hits you square in the gut.

Your face gets hot and you go lightheaded, saliva flooding your mouth as acid burns the back of your tongue. You turn your head and swallow desperately, trying to not throw up even as another wave of nausea rocks you.

Two thousand. Mostly along the waterfront, you know. You saw the wreckage yourself; there was no way to avoid it, since the only way out of town was right down the main road. Joyce and Warren and Frank were there in Two Whales, and a few people you didn't recognize. Truckers, probably, and a few fishermen. Outside or trapped in crumbling buildings were others: Evan and Alyssa, dozens of other people fleeing down the street, bodies crushed under warped metal and shattered wood. And it was Friday, so there were probably a lot more you didn't see. Vortex members on the beach, skaters in the big warehouse parking lots by the water, other students just in town, visiting. Not to mention the dock workers, the fishermen, everyone in the small businesses along the waterfront. You don't know if the homeless woman— _why_ didn't you ask her name?—listened to you and got out, or if the trucker you asked about Rachel skipped town, or if that woman who has to commute all the way to Newport was there instead of Arcadia when the storm hit.

Everyone you know in Arcadia Bay could be dead. Is likely dead. The thought sinks between your ribs and twists.

"Maxine? Maxine," your mom says, her voice tight and wavering, tugging her fingers a little too roughly through your hair. "Are you okay?"

You're not. You're a selfish piece of shit. How could you do this to them? How could you do this to _Chloe?_

How could you not?

"Yes, Mom," you lie, pulling back to smile at her. "For the fiftieth time, I'm alright."

She buys it, giving you a watery, thin-lipped smile in return as she smooths your hair back one last time before releasing you. "Sorry, Max," she says, not actually sounding very sorry. "You know I worry."

You force a chuckle and bob your head. "I know."

She smiles again and takes your hand, leading you back to the dining room. Her skin is dry and papery and it makes you distinctly uncomfortable; the last time she held your hand, it was leading you to the car after saying goodbye to Chloe before you moved.

Maybe she didn't buy it, after all.

But she seems to be okay with not pushing, for once. That gives you time to at least figure out a convincing lie, if not an almost-truth real enough to placate her.

Your mother is still holding your hand as she takes her place at the dining table, where there's already a cup of coffee—black, like you take yours—and her tablet, open to a bunch of legal jargon you still can't make heads or tails of, despite her many patient explanations over the years. It should be comforting, you know. It should be, but your skin crawls and you feel trapped and this chair is entirely too much like the one in the Dark Room—

Chloe, sitting on your other side, puts her cold hand over yours, white-knuckled on your bouncing knee.

She doesn't know. She doesn't know, because you haven't told her—you can't tell her, not yet, not when you still see white floors and camera flashes in your sleep and wake up with itching wrists—but she's still holding your hand and mouthing 'it's okay' and 'we're safe' to you.

You want very badly to kiss her, but you don't. That's not something you deserve, and you doubt it'd be welcome.

Instead you grin painfully and mouth back 'I'm fine', which you aren't, and Chloe looks at you like you're full of shit, which you are.

Your dad calls from the kitchen that waffles are done, and she replies 'later'.

You nod dutifully, another lie, and she retracts her hand as you stand up to get food.

As cold as her hands are, yours are colder still in the absence of her touch.


End file.
